News

Three students from the Department of Biological Sciences, Ruan van Mazijk, Lucy Smyth and Eleanor Weideman, together with their supervisor Associate Professor Adam West, recently had a paper published in WaterSA. The paper looked at the source of water in teh Liesbeeck River, following a storm.

New research, involving Professor Peter Ryan and Dr Martim Melo, from the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology in UCT's Department of Biological Sciences, used genetic techniques to figure out how the ancestors of the Inaccessible Island rail - the world's smallest flightless bird, arrived on the island.

Three-dimensional X-ray micro-computed tomography has been used to describe a new species of hermit crab, Pagurus fraserorum, found in the rocky subtidal reefs off the coast of KwaZulu-Natal. The study, published in PLOS One, by UCT marine taxonomist Dr Jannes Landschoff and co-author Emeritus Professor Charles Griffiths, from theDepartment of Biological Sciences, is the first description of a hermit crab in which most of the taxonomic details have been illustrated using 3D volume-rendered illustrations.

Undergraduate teaching is a cornerstone of our activities and the Faculty offers 21 different majors, with possibilities to co-major in subjects located in other Faculties. Our majors are loosely organised into three clusters – those in the biology, earth and environmental sciences, those in the chemical and molecular sciences, and those in the numerical and physical sciences. Our Bachelor of Science degree leads naturally on to a number of different Honours degrees that relate to the undergraduate major(s) offered by the various departments.

The Faculty of Science prides itself on the high regard in which it is held by the international academic community, reflected in part by international world university and subject rankings. According to the latest QS rankings, the Science Faculty at UCT places in the band 51-100 top universities in the Earth and Marine Sciences and in the band 101-150 in the Biological and Environmental Sciences.

The Faculty prides itself on its strong teaching programmes, at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, and on the strength of its research enterprise. With well developed international links with researchers across the world, the Faculty is a major contributor to cutting-edge, globally relevant research.Susan BourneInterim Dean: Faculty of Science